


Dreaming Aloud

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt somewhere on the kink meme that went something like this: “Erik and Charles, on their road trip, are in a bar. Someone gives Charles mind-altering substances. This is a Bad Thing to do to a telepath. Discuss.” So...that's what happens. Plus some confessions of Feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming Aloud

**Author's Note:**

> Title, opening, and closing lines from The Foo Fighters’ “Walking After You,” which is such an Erik/Charles song it’s like it was written for them. Tiny bit of historical inaccuracy near the beginning because I wanted to have Charles singing Beatles songs.

_tonight I’m tangled in my blanket of clouds_  
 _dreaming aloud_  
 _things just won’t do without you, matter of fact…_  
 

  
A success. They were celebrating.  
             
The noise of the bar echoed around them, laughter and shouts and some kind of popular music in the background that Erik didn’t know. Charles was laughing, and trying to sing along, badly. Erik rolled his eyes.  
             
“Erik! How can you dislike the Beatles?”  
             
“I’m quite certain that you are not the lead singer of the Beatles,” Erik retorted, and waved an arm at the bartender for a third round of drinks. There were definitely advantages to being tall.  
             
Charles ducked in under his arm, apparently entirely unaware of the concept of personal space, and grinned up at him. “This is going fantastically, isn’t it?”  
             
It was, Erik had to concede. Angel had not only listened to them, she had actually agreed to quit her job and come along. She’d said she’d see them at the hotel in the morning, and given Charles her phone number, with the mysterious comment, “Not that you’ll use it tonight.” Charles had grinned at that, glanced up at Erik, looked away quickly, and stuck the paper in his pocket.  
             
Erik had chalked this up to another one of those bizarre social situations that he didn’t understand, and left it at that. Some part of him was glad that Charles seemed uninterested in calling the girl, and he chose not to examine that memory any further.  
             
Besides, Charles was here with him now. He had the real thing.  
             
The real thing had gone back to butchering what, apparently, was a Beatles song. “Love, love me do…you know I love you…”  
             
“You really need to stop that,” Erik sighed, and collected their drinks. Because it was easier, he just reached both arms around Charles, who leaned against him. “Lightweight.”  
             
“I am not. You’re just comfortable.”  
             
“I’m cutting you off.”  
             
“Oh, please. I’m fairly sure I can out-drink you. Oxford parties…”  Charles looked up, cheerful. “You know, you have a fascinating mutation.”  
             
“That’s not actually your pickup line, is it?” Erik was captivated, and amused, despite himself. Charles in a bar was…something different. Alcohol, atmosphere, emotion…he guessed that Charles was picking up, and radiating back, the cheerful buzz of everyone in the room. He wondered whether Charles could tell what he, Erik, was thinking. Part of him hoped not, and the rest of him, the part that was slightly drunk, pondered what Charles would say if Erik looked at him and thought about how beautiful he was, eyes bright and face animated as he spoke.  
             
“No, no…well, yes, sometimes…but I mean it. You could have such potential…I mean, the Earth itself has magnetic fields…” Charles finished off most of his drink. “Do you know, you might be able to fly?”  
             
“That sounds terrifying,” Erik grumbled. He couldn’t even picture it. Arms out? Like Superman?  
             
“We could get you a cape!”  
             
“No capes.”  
             
“Oh…spoilsport.” Charles studied his glass. “I think my beer is gone.”  
             
“That’s because you drank it.” Erik caught the bartender’s eye, shrugged, got them another round. The man glanced from Charles to Erik, and back to Charles, and there was definite appreciation in that look. Erik put an arm around Charles, and glared. The bartender laughed, winked at them, and disappeared.  
             
Charles, typically, hadn’t noticed. But he leaned into Erik’s hold as if he liked being there. “No capes?”  
             
“ _Really_ no capes.”  
             
“Hmm…” Charles, apparently, had been continuing a different conversation in his head, because he blinked earnest eyes at Erik and inquired, “So, what _would_ work?”  
             
“Are we still talking about capes?”  
             
“Pickup lines! For you. What could I use?”  
             
Erik choked on the last sip of his beer. “Charles, are you flirting with me?”  
             
“Yes!” Charles beamed up at him as if Erik had just discovered the secret of the universe. “Exactly! Or I would be if you would help out a bit. What should I do?”  
             
“Charles…” Erik shook his head, laughing helplessly. The only true answer to that was simple: Charles didn’t have to do anything at all. He stood there all wide eyes and enthusiasm and flushed cheeks, smiling up at Erik conspiratorially, and Erik wanted him more than anything else in the world, at that moment, for all moments, forever.  
             
Charles tipped his head to one side. “Really?”  
             
“Oh god,” Erik said, with feeling, and grabbed their next round off the bar. The bartender winked at him _again_ —why? Was he giving off some sort of please-flirt-with-me vibe tonight?—and disappeared.  
             
“Just so you know, it’s entirely mutual,” Charles observed quickly, and then tipped up his glass and drank half his beer, as if he needed it after that admission. And Erik, watching with an unaccustomed emotion that he suspected might be delight, felt that newborn joy dissolve into shock, because a little red speck sat at the bottom of Charles’s glass, fizzing innocuously away.  
             
“ _No_ —”  
             
Charles had already paused, eying his beer with puzzlement. “Well, _that_ tastes different…”  
             
“How much of that did you drink?”  
             
“Not enough, I hope. Erik, I can hear what you’re thinking. Stop that.”  
             
Erik, who had been hunting for the bartender through the throng in much the manner of a shark seeking prey, snapped his gaze back to Charles. “He tried to—”  
             
“I know he did. He meant well—”  
             
“He what!”          

“Erik, I _can_ read minds,” Charles pointed out patiently. “He thought he was helping us relax and, er, get laid…oh, that does work quickly, it seems. Do you think that you can get us out of here without causing a scene? I’m not going to be much help, I’m afraid.”  
             
“Of course—what? Why?” Erik threw a handful of cash in the direction of the bar, wrapped an arm around Charles protectively, and started easing them past the knots and eddies of cheerfully intoxicated bar patrons, toward the exit.  
             
“Because every single person in this room is shouting inside my skull and I think I’m going to pass out…”  
             
“No you’re not. I’ve got you. Hang on.”  
             
One glance at Charles’s face was enough; Erik started using every bit of unobtrusive power at his disposal to begin moving obstacles out of their way. Tables, chairs… people who were wearing enough metal to be gently nudged aside… when had they gotten so far from the door?  
             
The weight leaning against him suddenly got heavier. “Charles?”  
             
“Still here… but so are about five hundred other very noisy people, unfortunately…did you know that there are eight people currently having sex upstairs? And that gentleman in the corner has just lost his job and is attempting to drink himself to death… Erik, I really don’t think I can stand up anymore, I’m sorry…”  
             
“I can carry you.”  
             
“Really? Oh, of course you can, you can probably carry three of me…”  
             
“That’s because you don’t weigh anything.” If he could keep Charles talking, he could make sure that Charles was still all right, or as all right as was possible under the circumstances. They were almost at the exit.  
             
“That isn’t true. I definitely weigh something. That woman over there has decided that I’m an adorable drunk and you must be a wonderful boyfriend, how nice…”  
             
“I have never been _anyone’s_ wonderful boyfriend.” The door. Outside. Maybe this would be better; at the very least, there had to be fewer people with burning desires intensified by alcohol. Charles hadn’t answered him, and that statement deserved a response, surely?  
             
Erik shifted the weight in his arms and looked down. Charles’s head rested against his shoulder, face white, eyes closed; Erik cursed, silently, in every language he knew.  
             
“Ouch, Erik, that was very loud…also, I think I’ve learned some new words…you might have to explain that last one later.”  
             
He couldn’t say he was sorry, because he wasn’t: Charles was talking again, and awake. Finally, mercifully, a cab stopped for them; Erik gave desperate instructions for their hotel, and returned his attention to Charles. “How are you feeling?”  
             
A terrifying pause. Erik bit his lip, and tasted the reassuring sting of blood and iron. “Charles? Talk to me.”  
             
“It’s very crowded in here…reception is only half the problem, you see…’M trying not to transmit… _everything_ …to everyone as well. Hurts…”  
             
Erik felt himself go cold. Somehow he hadn’t even considered that possibility. What would happen if Charles ended up broadcasting, to everyone they passed, the maelstrom of thought and emotion that he was already experiencing?  
             
“What can we do?”  
             
“I don’t know…”  
             
“Would a hospital—?” He knew the answer even as he said it; Charles was already replying to the thought. “No. They couldn’t help…and, Erik…people die in hospitals…rather not feel that…right now.”  
             
“No. All right, the hotel. For now.”  
  
They were only a few blocks away. The time sped past in disconnected segments, chunks of fear and adrenaline, startled glances and elevator walls, the unending brownness of the hallway and Charles’s pale face against the red of Erik’s shirt.  
  
The room door obligingly unlocked itself, and slammed shut and relocked behind them. Charles’s twin bed had disappeared beneath a disaster of books and notes and pillowy sweaters, but Erik’s bed was closer anyway: he’d automatically positioned himself between Charles and the door when they’d arrived. Charles slid out of his arms onto the blankets like dead weight, and didn’t move.  
             
“Charles, say something!”  
             
Accommodatingly, Charles murmured something, but it wasn’t quite loud enough to hear, and Erik wasn’t sure it was even in English. Whose stray thought had that been?  
             
“Charles, I don’t know what to do. I could…call someone…” But Charles himself was probably the only person qualified to deal with something like this. Erik muttered profanities in German, and then wondered whether Charles could still hear and understand him, and stopped.  
             
“Erik?”  
             
“Oh god _are you all right?”_  
             
“No. Don’t let go…it helps. You’re very real.”  
             
Erik tightened his grip on Charles’s hands. “I won’t. What do you mean, no? You’ll be fine.” He had to be fine. Anything else was…unthinkable.  
             
Charles shivered all over, trapped in the ghosts of other people’s sensations. “Might have to disappoint you, I’m afraid...”  
             
“Charles, _no_.”  
  
“It’s like drowning in a kaleidoscope… oh, those are lovely last words, aren’t they? Perfect…”  
             
“Like hell. You aren’t going to die.” Saying so out loud had to make it true, didn’t it? “Charles?”  
             
“Sorry…can’t remember…who…”  
             
Erik crushed Charles’s hands in his. “I’m Erik, Charles. Do you recognize me?”  
             
“Not you…always know who _you_ are…” Despite everything, Charles somehow managed to emphasize the _you_ , as if it was important to him that Erik understand this above all else. “But…which one…am I?”  
             
Erik’s grip loosened in shock, and one of Charles’s hands slipped free, falling quietly to the bed.  
             
“Charles, no!”  
  
The world was collapsing around them, and Erik couldn’t stop it. This couldn’t be right; he couldn’t be losing Charles, not so quickly, not like this, not to something so stupid, so common, so _human_. No. He had to bring Charles back.  
             
Desperate, he clung to Charles on the bed, and started talking. Words weren’t his strong suit—they never had been—but Charles loved words, out loud, on paper, framed in discussion and debate and dreadful pickup lines. Words, then, were what Erik could offer.  
             
“Your name is Charles Xavier,” he said, to the still face against the pillows. “You are a professor. A geneticist.” He paused. “You are a very young professor. Everyone knows that you are brilliant.” No. Too formal. Charles was lying silent and immobile and his hands, wrapped in Erik’s, felt small and cold.  
  
With every minute of silence, Erik found it harder not to panic, and that in itself was a horrifying feeling. Erik never allowed himself to panic. Panic got in the way of cool and calculated revenge. But he was feeling close to it now.  
             
He took the threatening onslaught of emotion, and let it flow into his fingertips; maybe he could channel it into something useful. Freeing one hand, he coaxed the metal springs out of the other bed, tugging them over as the bed collapsed with a shriek, and weaving them into a web around himself and Charles, trying to block out the world outside. Making a sanctuary.  
             
He filled in the gaps with the fixtures from dresser drawers, pen caps, tie clips, anything he could find. The rest of the room now looked as if a very specialized tornado had hit it, but Erik couldn’t see it, and didn’t care. Maybe if they were isolated enough, the world would grow quieter, and Charles might be able to hear him again.  
             
“You like chess,” Erik told him this time, both of them wrapped in the shadow of the comforting metal curtains. “You and I play frequently. I think I am ahead, in the number of wins.” He wasn’t. “You like pineapple and you hate strawberries. You enjoy good whisky but drink cheap beer, which I will never understand.” Still nothing. Charles was breathing, though, softly, and Erik held on to that fact like a lifeline.  
             
“You have a sister. Do you remember her? Her name is Raven. She’s like us; she’s special, Charles. She can do amazing things. Like you.” He hesitated, searching for some sign, some flicker of recognition. None came.  
             
What would he do, if he lost Charles? He’d had his own plans, before they’d ever met. His own mission. But somehow he’d gotten caught up in Charles’s mission, in Charles’s life, and the thought of going on without him, going back to the way life had been, seemed oddly flat and colorless.  
             
“Do you remember when we met? You pulled me out of the water and saved my life, and you had never even met me before. You told me you knew everything about me, and you called me your friend.” It was a word no one had ever applied to Erik Lehnsherr before. “You’re that person, Charles. The person who will risk everything to save a stranger, always.”  
             
Nothing. “Charles, please. Please wake up.”  
             
Charles moved his head, just a fraction, and Erik’s heart made an unaccustomed little skip, but that was it: Charles relaxed into stillness again. A lock of hair had fallen over his eyes; Erik lifted one hand, carefully, and brushed it back. He let his fingers linger, feeling the pulse of a heartbeat, too fast but reassuringly present.  
             
“I don’t understand you,” Erik said to him. “You know how much darkness lies in everyone, and you choose to believe in the light. You have such faith in everyone. Even in me. And I don’t understand you but you make me want to try. To see what you see, even for an hour, a day, a minute.” He ran a thumb across Charles’s cheekbone. “If it weren’t for you I’d have killed the damn bartender, for this.” _If he’s hurt you, I swear that I still will_ , he added, but he didn’t say that part of it to Charles.  
             
“So, you see, I need you to wake up. To…to be you. I—the world—the world needs you, Charles.” Maybe that would work. Certainly Charles had an overdeveloped sense of social responsibility.  
             
But nothing changed.  
  
Erik kept talking, as time stretched out interminably, saying anything and everything he could think of, from invented chess games to potential renovations for the mansion to descriptions of the flowers on a desert hillside in Mexico. Charles would have liked them, he thought. Hardy little yellow things, blooming unexpectedly in the dust where they had no right to be, and clinging tenaciously to life. He’d seen them in great detail, since he’d spent several hours on that hillside with a sniper rifle. He didn’t tell Charles that part, either, even though Charles probably already knew.  
             
 _He knew everything about me, before I even knew his name, and I didn’t even mind… Stop thinking in the past tense! He isn’t dead_. He wasn’t; Erik kept checking, to make sure. Charles was breathing and alive and everything except awake, and present, and here.  
             
“Someday we’ll go back to Mexico,” he told Charles. “Or Venice. Have you ever been to Venice? You would feel at home there, I think. Among all the sunlight and mosaic and marble and water. You would fit in, in Venice. Both beautiful.” He hadn’t exactly meant to say that, but it was true. And he might as well say it now.  
             
“You are, you know,” he said, to Charles’s unmoving face. “You are beautiful, and brilliant, and the kindest man I know, and sometimes the most arrogant and infuriating, because you always think you are right, and the trouble is that you usually are, and some days I want to throw things at your head and some days I want to kiss you, and I think I am in love with you. And I would very much appreciate it if you would wake up now, please.”  
             
Nothing. Erik shut his eyes, exhausted, hurting, helpless, out of words. He dropped his head to rest against their joined hands, and refused to let himself cry.  
             
After an eternity of silence, he heard, “…Erik?” and jerked his head up so quickly that he almost gave himself whiplash.  
             
“ _Charles_.” He couldn’t manage any more than that.  
             
Charles’s eyes were rimmed with red, and his face was pale, but he was still the most perfect thing Erik had ever seen. He actually managed a smile, and Erik found himself shaking with the effort not to weep, or laugh, or both at once. How like Charles, to smile in the face of near-death.  
             
“I could hear you,” Charles whispered, and his voice was shaky but definitely present. “I could hear you but I couldn’t answer…You gave me something to hold on to.” His hands were wrapped around Erik’s, squeezing back for the first time since the whole ordeal had begun, and Erik just held on to him and thought, _Thank you, thank you_ , even though he had no idea to whom the thought was addressed.  
             
“Charles,” he said again, because apparently he’d used up all his words and couldn’t think of anything else. “Are you…all right?”  
             
“I’m fairly sure I have the world’s worst hangover,” Charles sighed, “but I’ll live. Are _you_ all right?”  
             
“ _Me_?” Erik stared at him. “I’m fine, Charles! You—how can you even ask—”  
             
“Don’t shout,” Charles murmured, and then put an arm around Erik and tugged him closer, so that they ended up pressed together, hip to hip, Charles’s head resting against Erik’s shoulder. It felt oddly comfortable. Oddly right. “Mm,” Charles said into his shoulder. “Better.”  
             
 _For me, too_. Erik put his arms around Charles, trying for reassuring solidity, and listened to their breathing, in and out, in sync, together.  
             
After a minute, Charles glanced around, with a decidedly puzzled expression. “Erik…are we in…some sort of cocoon?”  
             
“Oh.” Erik hoped he wasn’t blushing. Maybe Charles wouldn’t notice. “I thought it might…help. Block things out. Deflect some of the noise. Or something.”  
             
Charles looked thoughtful. “I think it did help, actually. It did seem to get quieter, after a bit. Easier to focus on you.”  
             
“Good.”  
             
“Thank you.” Charles tipped his head up to meet Erik’s gaze directly. He still looked utterly worn out, as if he’d been through a war zone and back. In a way, Erik supposed, he had. “For everything. For all of it. I wouldn’t have made it back, without you.”  
             
“You don’t have to—”  
             
“Nevertheless.” His eyes seemed even more blue than usual, surrounded by exhaustion. Erik wanted to hold on to him, and never let go. “Erik…some of the things you said…”  
             
 _Oh, no_. “That you infuriate and annoy me? You already know that.”  
             
“Erik, don’t be evasive, I’m far too tired for that…”  
             
“And not above exploiting it, I see.” Erik had one hand resting on the small of Charles’s back; he imagined that he could feel the warmth of skin even through today’s ludicrously fluffy sweater.  
             
Charles yawned. “You’ve caught me. How terrible of me, using my pain to manipulate you.”  
             
“ _Are_ you in pain?”  
             
“Some…”  
             
Which meant _a lot_. “What can I do?”  
             
“Oh, Erik…I really don’t think even you can tell my brain to stop feeling as if the Oxford rowing team were having a party inside my skull…”  
             
“I can try.”  
  
Charles leaned against him, shutting his eyes. “Just stay here, actually. It helps. You’re my anchor.”  
  
Erik blinked at that, and felt the warmth of it slide all the way down to his toes. _You’re mine, too_. But he, unlike Charles, refused to say such a sappy thing out loud.  
  
Charles’s breathing settled, deepened into the rhythms of sleep; Erik waited another minute, just to be sure, and then whispered into his hair, “I love you.”  
  
“I _knew_ you said it.”  
  
 “You were asleep!”  
  
“I’m very devious, aren’t I? Actually, five more seconds and you would have been safe… I love you, too.”  
  
“You—what?”  
  
“I thought it was fairly clear…”  
  
“Charles—you can’t—you _know_ me—it’s supposed to be just me who—” _Who feels this for you even though we’ve only known each other a week. Who wants to make you mine, to keep you with me, even when I’m not good for you. When you’re so good, and I’m anything but._  
  
“Erik, you idiot.” Charles yawned again, and paused, sorting out words. “I can love you. I _do_. And you are _not_ not good for me. We’re good for each other. That’s _why_ we’re good for each other. Now stop thinking so loudly—my brain hurts—and kiss me and go to sleep. We’re going to have to explain this room in the morning…”  
  
Erik leaned down to brush his lips against Charles’s, amused, astonished all over again, delighted, and thinking, _maybe, just maybe_... “Are you always this bossy when you’re tired?”  
  
“You’ll have a lot of time to find out…”  
  
To his surprise, after the ordeal of the night, Erik found himself still capable of smiling at that. He was, he decided, looking forward to it.  
 

_If you'd accept surrender  
I'll give up some more  
Weren't you adored  
I cannot be without you, matter of fact…  
And if you walk out on me  
I'm walking after you_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[授权翻译]Dreaming Aloud](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3599859) by [Shame_i_translate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shame_i_translate/pseuds/Shame_i_translate)




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